All elements described below are detailed between pp. 528-547 of M20.

Check the Common Magickal Effects chart for some suggested effects.

Check out this helpful list of published rotes: http://www.pen-paper.net/indices/wod/rotes.pdf.

Check the Wonders and Gadgets page for sample wonders and gadgets.

THE SHORT VERSION

Step One – Effect:
What Do You Want to Do, and How?
• What Effect are you trying to accomplish?
• Which Spheres are you using?

Step Two – Ability: Can You Do It?
• Use process-based determinism and hypothetical average bystander models (remember Schrφdinger's cat?)
• How does your character focus belief and practice into making it happen (PBD)?
• Which tools and/or rituals are you using?
• How long does it take?
• Is what you’re doing vulgar or coincidental (HAB/HAP)?
• Are any allies assisting you?
• Do you have any mundane skills that might help?

Step Three – Roll:
Are You Successful?
• What's your dice pool (most appropriate Attribute + lowest Sphere used)?
• Roll your dice pool versus the appropriate difficulty:
Coincidental: Difficulty 6
Vulgar Without Witnesses: Difficulty 7
Vulgar With Witnesses: Difficulty 8
Mental coercion: Difficulty = target's Willpower
Reaching across the Gauntlet/Mists: Difficulty = Gauntlet/Mists rating
• Add or subtract modifiers (maximum +3/-3).
• If you need to hit your target, roll appropriate combat Traits.
• Spend Quintessence and/or Willpower (if desired).
• Check the number of your successes.
• Do you need to roll more successes?
• Repeat for extended rituals/rolls. (Remember that Paradox stacks.)
• Each failure adds +1 to the difficulty of subsequent attempts.
• A botch can be avoided once per effect by spending a Willpower point and losing a success (trying again increases the difficulty by +1). A second botch will destroy the effect and cause backlash.

Step Four – Results: What Happens?
• What sorts of results did your magick have? (Damage, Duration, apparent effects, etc.)
• Did someone dodge, soak, resist, or use countermagick against your Effect? If so, remove the successes they rolled from your own successes.
• Did you succeed? If so, determine its results. (Take Paradox if required.)
• Did you fail? If so, Effect fizzles. (Take Paradox.)
• Did you botch? If so, take Paradox as below:
Coincidental Botch: Gain one point of Paradox per dot in the highest Sphere used.
Vulgar Without Witnesses Botch: Gain one point of Paradox + one point per dot in the highest Sphere.
Vulgar With Witnesses Botch: Gain two points of Paradox + two points per dot in the highest Sphere.
• Did you get more than five points of Paradox? If so, Storyteller may roll for backlash.

THE LONG VERSION

Arete and Avatar

For balance, Avatar is subsumed into Arete, with the number of dots in Arete limiting the amount of Quintessence a character can spend and their Sphere ratings. So a character with Arete 1 can channel one point of Quintessence per turn and learn Spheres up to the first level.

This means characters aren't required to drop as many points as possible into Avatar, and nor are characters who don't do so at a disadvantage. Arete retains its importance, but dice pools for casting Effects are now larger.

Difficulty and Dice Pools

Because the magick rules in Mage: The Ascension make higher level Spheres significantly weaker than lower level Spheres, the rules seem to unduly penalise characters who are more skilled when they want to use their powers. That seems odd in a game of magick.

With that in mind, the base difficulty will now be 6-8 (lower across the Gauntlet and in Horizon Realms). This should balance the effect of a higher difficulty for lower level powers, while making more experienced characters better at enacting their magick. For effects that work on another person's mind, the difficulty would be equal to their Willpower regardless of the standard difficulty above.

Because larger dice pools are desirable in a game of urban fantasy (such as a crossover between Mage and Changeling), we will use an Attribute + Sphere pairing for effects. Rolling Arete + Sphere puts too much emphasis on Arete (which already caps Spheres), while Attribute + Sphere not only encourages players to develop their other traits beyond Arete, it also neatly mirrors the mechanics of changeling (changelings roll Attribute + Realm).

A Mind effect that attempts to persuade a person, for example, might use either Charisma (if being charming) or Manipulation (if being underhand). A Life effect that attempts to heal might use Stamina, while a Life effect that attempts to harm might use Strength. A Correspondence effect might use Perception (to perceive across distances) or Dexterity (to move or manipulate things). However, if in doubt, you can consult the following:

Attribute Affinity Cheat Sheet
Correspondence - Dexterity, Perception, Wits
Entropy - Dexterity, Strength, Wits
Forces - Strength, Manipulation, Stamina
Life - Strength, Stamina, Appearance
Matter - Intelligence, Dexterity, Manipulation
Mind - Intelligence, Charisma, Appearance
Prime - Stamina, Perception, Charisma
Spirit - Charisma, Manipulation, Appearance
Time - Perception, Intelligence, Wits

Note: Yes, Appearance seems like an odd one at first, but it can be used to seduce individuals (Mind) or impress beings who judge a person on their magnificence (Spirit). It can also be used when altering one's own form (Life). Similarly, Charisma (charm) is often an intangible quality - tied as it is to intangible energies which a charismatic person might find they have a strange affinity with. Viewed from another perspective (or paradigm), Prime might be seen as coercing the energy underpinning the universe (or sweet-talking God) into revealing itself and doing as you wish - hence tied to Charisma. Hopefully, the other suggestions are much more self-explanatory.

Dividing Successes

What you can achieve with an effect depends on which levels of the Spheres you have. You can find a run-down of the Spheres as they appeared in Mage Revised here: http://www.bountyheadbebop.com/forum/index.php?topic=487.0 (the descriptions have been updated in M20, but this is a useful resource anyway).

Successes rolled on an effect must be divided between targets, damage and duration.

Additional successes beyond those required for the effect can, at the player's choice, be allocated to extend factors such as duration, damage or range; or to affect an additional target per extra success. You should let the ST know your intentions before you roll, but can allocate the successes once rolled as you see fit.

Damage, Duration and Area

Scoring Damage: Each success inflicts one level of damage (remember that effects that target someone else require at least two successes to work, so one success would score no damage but two successes would score two levels, three would score three levels, etc). For Mind attacks, this damage is bashing; for most other Spheres, it's lethal. Charged with Quintessence, it's aggravated. Forces attacks inflict one automatic success of damage.

Scoring Duration: Each success expended on duration extends the duration beyond one turn. One additional success extends the duration to a scene; two extra successes, a day; three extra successes, a full story; four extra successes, six months; five extra successes, the Storyteller's option. Scoring double the normal successes required for a complete success on the Effect may make it permanent, at the Storyteller's option.

Scoring Area: Affecting a Pattern other than the mage himself requires a success (so you need a minimum of two successes to affect someone other than yourself). Each additional Pattern affected after the first requires an extra success. Note that this doesn't get rid of the Sphere pre-requisites for affecting other people. Affecting a large area requires additional successes at the Storyteller's discretion. A giant ball of flame is harder to make than a simple, single bolt of fire.

Example of Total Scoring: A mage scores four successes on a vulgar fire blast to target two people. Three successes are used for damage, so it inflicts four levels of aggravated damage (three for the successes, one for a Forces Effect, aggravated for fire). One success is used to strike an additional target. Two targets are struck, each taking four levels of aggravated fire damage. If the mage had instead scored only one success, he would have inflicted no damage and the fire blast would have dissolved into nothing unless he extended the effect with another roll (at +1 difficulty and with stacked Paradox). Note: The mage also has to roll to hit each target.

Direct Damage

Due to the larger dice pools for magick casting, each success on the casting roll equals just one health level of damage. Forces damage gains an additional one health level of damage, as usual.

Mind damage is bashing, everything else is lethal, unless charged with Prime 2 and a point of Quintessence (then it becomes aggravated). Any fire or electrical Forces effects are aggravated. Vulgar Entropy, Life and Prime effects that attack the subject's Pattern directly are also aggravated.

Fireballs, lightning and other forms of spontaneous 'striking' damage occur for just a moment and burn out after the first turn. Additional successes must be spent to maintain the damage over multiple turns - with one success maintaining/inflicting the damage for an additional turn.

However, if a character is merely starting a flame in an area and allowing it to spread, the effect actually works differently (to make fire damage consistent across games). The degree of success determines the heat and size of the conflagration:

1 success - Candle (difficulty 3 to soak, one health level of aggravated damage/turn)
2 successes - Palm of flame (difficulty 4 to soak, one health level of aggravated damage/turn)
3 successes - Campfire (difficulty 5 to soak, two health levels of aggravated damage/turn)
4 successes - Bonfire (difficulty 7 to soak, two health levels of aggravated damage/
turn)
5 successes - Inferno (difficulty 9 to soak, three health levels of aggravated damage/
turn)

Beyond five successes, each additional success converts to another health level per turn of aggravated damage. The fire burns until it is extinguished and mortals cannot usually soak aggravated damage at all.

Correspondence and Teleportation Ranges
One success - Line of sight (intimate)/possesses body sample of the subject's
Two successes - Very familiar (companion)/possesses close possession of the subject's
Three successes - Familiar (casual friend)/has any possession of the subject's
Four successes - Visited once (casual acquaintance)/has an object used once by the target
Five successes - Described location (fleeting encounter)/briefly touched or met the target
Six+ successes - Anywhere on Earth/no connection

Time Sphere Timelines
One success - Within a year
Two successes - Five years
Three successes - 20 years
Four successes - 50 years
Five successes - 100 years
Six + successes - 500 years
10+ successes - 1000 years or more
Notes: Timespan limits apply only to looking or reaching through time, not to the duration of a given Effect.

Paradox

We'll be using the M20 rules for Paradox accrual. For Backlash, we'll use the M20 rules with a bit of a tweak to make the damage inflicted more consistent.

The Backlash chart is as follows:

Botch - All Paradox points discharge harmlessly.
0 successes - No effects, but no Paradox points discharge.
1-5 successes - One point of Paradox discharged per success. Mage also suffers a Burn or acquires a trivial Paradox Flaw.
6-10 successes - One point of Paradox discharged per success. Mage also suffers a Burn or acquires a minor Paradox Flaw.
11-15 successes - Usual Paradox point-discharge, as well as a Burn or one of the following effects: a significant Paradox Flaw, a Paradox Spirit visitation, or a mild Quiet.
16-20 successes - Usual Paradox point-discharge, as well as a Burn and either one point of permanent Paradox or two of the following effects: a severe Paradox Flaw, a Paradox Spirit visitation, a moderate Quiet, or banishment to a Paradox Realm.
21+ successes - Usual Paradox discharge plus a Burn and one of the following effects: two points of permanent Paradox, one drastic Paradox Flaw, a Paradox Spirit visitation, a severe Quiet, or banishment to a Paradox Realm.

The number of successes on the Backlash roll determines the amount of damage:

• 1B per point discharged (this can be soaked);
• 1L per two points discharged, rounded down (this can be soaked at difficulty 8);
• 1A per three points, rounded down (this can only be soaked with certain Prime magicks).

The ST will allocate damage appropriately, though if more than 10 points are discharged, the damage will always be lethal or aggravated; and if more than 20 points are discharged, the damage will always be aggravated.

Remember that Paradox stacks during an extended ritual, with each additional roll adding more to a backlash's total.

If a ritual or extended casting is interrupted by an outside force, the caster must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 8) or botch the whole effect.

A mage may spend one Willpower point to delay a backlash until the end of the scene - but any additional Paradox accrued during this time will also be released.

Resonance and Synergy

Resonance is measured by the Echoes Flaw, but detailed as per the Resonance descriptions in M20. When taking the Echoes Flaw, a player should give the character an appropriate flavour, signature and rating (equal to the points cost of the Flaw). You needn't take the Echoes Flaw or even think about Resonance - we can just roleplay it as necessary.

Synergy (as poorly defined in the M20 book) appears to be when a mage's Effects are influenced by her surroundings and the magic in the world. Thus, in this game, mages don't have a Synergy trait, but a building or an area might. This Synergy trait will interact with a mage's Resonance and/or Avatar Essence, and will colour her magic appropriately. But ultimately it's a Storyteller thing to narrate the outcome of an Effect - so again, you needn't worry about it.

Fast-casting penalties and rotes

Every mage character can start play with one rote for each Sphere level they possess. Additional rotes can be gained in-character via blue booking or journals.

Overcoming fast-casting penalties is a matter of preparation and repetition. A mage can create new rotes or learn existing ones through research or a tutor. This must be roleplayed, and also detailed in your bluebook. The ST will judge each case on an individual basis (but the aim is to enable storytelling, so the ST will usually rule in favour of creativity).

As a guideline, learning a new rote would require a minimum of one hour per Sphere dot required if the character has a tutor. So a Life 1/Matter 2 Effect would require three hours' tutoring to become a rote. If a mage is creating a new rote on her own, the process of research, exploration and trial-and-error would take one day per Sphere dot required while the mage considers the theory, applies it to her paradigm, thinks through any obstacles or challenges, and then walks through the steps involved.

Some sample rotes are listed here:
http://www.thesubnet.com/portal/wod/mtas/RotesList.html (listed by Sphere)
http://dusk.wikia.com/wiki/Mage:_Common_Rotes (common rotes)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3479599/The-Grimoire-of-the-Cabal-of-Pure-Thought#scribd (fan supplement)

RESISTING MAGICK

Mind Magick

In most cases, humans cannot resist Mind effects unless they have prior experience of the supernatural and know to shield their minds from such assaults (Awareness 3 or Occult 3, True Faith, or any appropriate Numina).

Supernatural beings may do so if they're aware of the attempt (this would be a contested Willpower roll) whether or not they have any knowledge of the magick being used.

Different to resisting mental intrusion, humans can disbelieve illusions (including faerie magic) but must get 5+ successes on a Willpower roll (as per M20, p.504).

Mages can attempt a battle of wills as if it were combat, both rolling for their relevant effects (difficulty equal to their opponent's Willpower), with the victor using the net successes to determine the degree of success.

Countermagick and Counterweaving

NOTE: As this is a crossover, these house rules are a work-in-progress, and might be subject to change as we discover what works best for us as a troupe.

Overcoming a spell already in effect by a character of the same type as you (e.g., also a mage or also a changeling), requires overcoming the original number of successes rolled with whichever dice pool the character would normally use for countermagick or counterweaving.

Changelings and mages can attempt to counter each other's spells by rolling Wits + Realm (changelings) versus Wits + Sphere (mages). Changelings gain one point of temporary Banality for destroying magic in this way.

Direct magickal attacks are not usually able to be defended in this way, and must instead be dodged as if a physical attack. However, there may come a time when both characters might want to duke it out with lightning bolts and fireballs.

Should both characters want to engage in any kind mystical firefight, it becomes a round of combat. As such, characters use their standard initiative and must roll to hit before rolling damage.

Further Crossover Concerns

Affecting Changelings and Chimerae

Affecting chimerical reality or anything in the Dreaming requires Mind 3/Spirit 3 in addition to the usual Spheres. If a mage does not use Mind 1/Spirit 1 to see chimerical reality first, any attempts to affect chimerical beings are done 'blind'. The difficulty of such effects is 9, with five additional successes required. It's usually much simpler and easier to either be enchanted or to peer into chimerical reality first.

All uses of the Time Sphere against sidhe are at +2 difficulty.

In the Dreaming itself (and some freeholds), magick works differently. Please see the Common Magickal Effects section for more information.

Glamour and Quintessence

As a general rule, Glamour can be converted to Quintessence, but not always the other way around. Mages can use Dross as if it were Tass. Mages may help convert Tass or Quintessence into forms more easily absorbed by changelings, but this requires the use of Prime.

Changelings with Fae 5 can attempt to transmute the nature of Tass to Dross (or Quintessence to Glamour) with Primal 5. Alternatively, the ST may allow a portion of an object's Tass or Quintessence to be drawn as Glamour (usually this will be less than half the usual amount, however, and the remaining Tass/Quintessence will be lost).

Any freehold that provides Glamour can be used to regain Quintessence instead, but note that drawing Quintessence directly from a freehold runs the risk of Bedlam (magical insanity). Rules for the specifics of this are forthcoming.

Essence and Banality

p. 281 of CTD2e lists the following Banality ratings for mages:

Mysticks (Verbenae, Ecstatics, Hermetics, Dreamspeakers) 2-4
True Believers (Nephandi, Celestial Chorus, Akashayana, Chakravanti, most Crafts) 4-6
Modern Cynics (technomancers, most Orphans and Hollow Ones) 6-8

Here's how we'll play it:

1. Take your Avatar Essence or Resonance
2. Dynamic essences/Resonance give you the lowest rating from the above range.
3. Balanced (Questing) puts you in the middle of the range.
4. Entropic (Primordial) puts you at the higher end.
5. Static (Pattern) puts you at the higher end +1.

Please add this rating to your character sheet.

Enchantment

There are a number of benefits to enchantment. The primary benefit is that a mage or mortal can see chimerical reality without using any magick of their own. Not only can see chimerical reality, however - they can also touch it, kiss it, beat it up and taste it. They can also more easily be healed by cooperative changelings - although, conversely, some faerie magics will be easier to cast on the subject.

See Enchantment.

The Mists

See Enchantment.